bush did for both the afghanistan and iraq wars. lauren, you know, this president often called the iraq war, the dumb war. >> well here he is in a very difficult spot. he was elected on the fact that he would slow down those wars, eventually grind them to a halt and now he is in the position of sending a message to assad by these missiles, not ground troops, but sending a message that we will not tolerate chemical warfare. so he is really, having to face becoming a hawk and the problem here i think, the media coverage of this is that the media was burned at the iraq war. they were given false information and ran with it and i think that there is a reluctance this time for people to say, yes, we need to go forward and we need to go forward very strongly. jon: well, and judy, there are many who argue that the president has yet to make a compelling case for america's national interests other than the fact that we deplore the use of chemical weapons? >> well, exactly. even "the new york times" said just that. where's the strategy? we ar